wfn.org | Jerusalem's Lutheran hospital caught up in the conflict

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Note #6214 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

13-October-2000
00352

Jerusalem's Lutheran hospital caught up in the conflict

by Ross Dunn
Ecumenical News International

(Editor's note: PC(USA) mission co-worker Layne Hawley resides in this
hospital compound, and, it is a temporary home to Gloria Yi, a young adult
volunteer, who narrowly escaped injury during an Israeli rocket attack in
Ramallah.  Both Yi and Hawley are being sent to Cyprus until it is clear
that it is safe to return to Jerusalem.)

JERUSALEM -- A Christian-run hospital at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem
has found itself at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

	Not only is this institution treating the wounded from the recent clashes,
but the building has itself come under attack.

	On a normal day, many tourists to the Holy Land climb the tower at the
Augusta Victoria Hospital for a bird's-eye view of Jerusalem's walled Old
City. The hospital's beautiful stone buildings and courtyard are often a
welcome relief from the city's hustle and bustle.

	But life at the hospital, administered by the Lutheran World Federation
(LWF), has not been normal in recent days. For almost two weeks, Augusta
Victoria has been cut off from most of the community it serves -- Israeli
soldiers surrounded the area around the hospital after Palestinians in local
riots entered the grounds to seek refuge from the soldiers. The Palestinians
were pursued by Israeli soldiers who opened fire without warning, sending
terrified hospital staff and patients ducking for cover.

	Craig Kippels, chief executive of the hospital and LWF representative in
Jerusalem, witnessed the events. "Some of the young Palestinians ran into
our property adjacent to the
hospital," he told ENI. "Our security began the process of attempting to
stem the flow of those youth coming into the property, but in the process,
the Israeli military basically came
through our main entrance, stormed the length of the property, and began
shooting on our property."

	Kippels said that in the aftermath of the shootings, the hospital staff
brought stretchers and began carrying victims into the emergency ward. At
least one of the wounded did not survive.

	"Some of the patients who came into our emergency room were wounded with
live ammunition," he said. "The wounds that these people received were very,
very severe. The patient that died had a head wound that literally blew his
skull off."

	Kippels added that as a Christian he was horrified by such incidents. "The
thing that strikes me as a Christian is that I don't understand how people
do this to each other. It seems to be violence without a purpose, I don't
understand it." He hoped that both Israelis and Palestinians would do
everything in their power to end the fighting.

	"I think that both sides can maybe make a stronger effort to find a way to 
peace," he said.

	Kippels said he had appealed to the authorities in Israel to ensure that
the hospital did not become a battleground. However, although he had
protested strongly over the actions of the Israeli security forces, they had
refused to withdraw from the streets outside the hospital.

	Dr Tawfiq Nasser, the Palestinian director of the hospital, said that
roadblocks had been set up around the institution. This was hampering the
staff from providing medical care to Palestinian refugees in Jerusalem and
the West Bank. On some days Israeli military turned patients and staff away.

	"We are still unable to get some of the critical and very important key
people into the hospital," Dr Nasser told ENI. "Even though the checkpoint
is not in front of the hospital anymore, the whole area is sealed."

	But Dr Nasser said that with Islamic militants calling for another "day of 
anger" for today 13 October the worst of the violence might still lie ahead,
and the siege of the hospital could continue.

	In Geneva the general secretary of the LWF, Dr Ishmael Noko, has protested
to the Israeli government about the soldiers' actions at and near the
hospital. "The Lutheran World Federation presence in East Jerusalem and its
operation of the August Victoria Hospital are founded upon an ethic of
humanitarian medical care and assistance," Dr Noko said. The LWF strongly
objected, he said, to "such use" of the hospital premises by the military,
describing the soldiers' entry onto hospital premises for military purposes
as "a fundamental affront to this humanitarian purpose".

	The hospital is known to many thousands of Christian pilgrims who have
visited the Church of the Ascension inside the hospital grounds and enjoyed
the sweeping views from the bell tower. The church was built on the Mount of
Olives, were Jesus is believed to have ascended to heaven.

	The compound, which was first completed about 90 years ago and which has
the appearance of a medieval fortress, was intended as a hostel for pilgrims
to Jerusalem and as a hospice for patients suffering from malaria.

	It consists of massive rectangular buildings sheltered inside high stone
walls. The complex was built on the orders of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany
after he visited the Holy Land in 1898. He named the institution after his
wife.

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